Court Okays Student’s MySpace Principal Parody

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has finally ruled that school officials cannot discipline students for ridiculing their principals on MySpace during their hours away from school. As I discussed last year in the blog here, the Court agreed to re-hear both cases en banc (with the Court's entire 14 judges considering the case). In the first, J.S. v. Blue Mountain School District, the judges were sharply split, voting 8-6 to overturn a 10-day suspension of a student who posted a fake profile on MySpace that portrayed the principal as a pedophile and a sex addict. The majority opinion rejected the school district's argument that such lewd speech̵...

First Amendment Fiasco – Student Speech Confusion

From The Legal Intelligencer: Lawyers were scratching their heads on Thursday over a federal appellate court's seemingly conflicting rulings in a pair of closely watched student-speech cases that both involve high school students who were suspended for creating fake MySpace pages on their home computers to ridicule their principals. Although the cases appeared at first glance to raise nearly identical legal questions about the limits on a school's power to discipline students for off-campus speech, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the student in Layshock v. Hermitage School District and with the school in J.S. v. Blue Mountain ...

ACLU Sues School for MySpace Penis Pop Pix Punishment

Two sophomore girls have sued their school after they were punished for posting lingerie photos on MySpace during their summer vacation which showed them licking a penis-shaped lollipop. This is not New York, New Jersey or even California folks. The girls live in rural Indiana. The ACLU, in a federal lawsuit filed last week on behalf of the girls, argues that Churubusco High School violated the girls' free speech rights when it banned them from extracurricular activities for a joke that didn't involve the school. They say the district humiliated the girls by requiring them to apologize to an all-male coaches' board and undergo counseling. Some argue ...

XOb (MySpace First Amendment Rights for Students)

1st Amendment rights for high school student MySpace parody sites create district court split - 3rd Cir to resolve Link

Online Abuse of Girls Starts at Home

Unlike the Harvard Law School Berkman Center cyber white wash from earlier this year, a recent American Academy of Pediatrics scientific study found that a history of childhood abuse and a provocative online identity increase the risk of Internet exploitation for girls. The the study's objective was to determine the risk factors for Internet-initiated victimization of female adolescents. The researchers found that abused girls were significantly more likely to have experienced online sexual advances and to have met someone offline. Having been abused and choosing a provocative avatar were significantly and independently associated with online sexual ...

XOb (MySpace Privacy)

MySpace content not private - CA Appeals Court rules blog can be republished in newspaper without invading privacy Link

Cyber Conflict of Interest – Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center Calls Online Threats to Children Overblown

At first glance, the news in today's New York Times that "the Internet may not be such a dangerous place for children after all" will give many a sense of relief. Look closer, however, and you'll quickly discover that cyber-industry heavyweights have co-opted the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. By selling itself to the industry it is allegedly investigating, the Berkman Center has become both a shrill and a shield for the powerful well-funded online establishment. First the "news." According to the NYT: A task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online ...